


look out, you've got your blinders on

by howlingmoonrise (TheDarkStoryteller)



Category: Pet Shop of Horrors
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Leon Orcot (mentioned), M/M, Oneshot, in theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27287779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkStoryteller/pseuds/howlingmoonrise
Summary: It's a pair of warm blue eyes that greets him, when he opens the door.D feels his heart fall to his feet, and then recovers it. Places every jagged, cutting piece back on his hand like those of a broken cup, ready for the trash, and pretends it never happened. There's no reason to react like that, after all.Because the man at the door is not Leon Orcot.--Or, Chris finds D before Leon does.
Relationships: Count D & Chris Orcot, Count D/Leon Orcot
Comments: 12
Kudos: 61
Collections: howl's personal yuletide psoh party (2020)





	look out, you've got your blinders on

**Author's Note:**

> this is the mixing of prompts number 9 and 33 of my Never-Ending List Of PSoH Fic Ideas I May Or May Not Someday Write. ended up being considerably shorter than i originally thought when i first had the idea 2+ years ago... mostly because it's. uh. open-ended at best.
> 
> this is kind of the launch for my personal psoh yuletide party! for the first time in ages, psoh wasn't a nominated fandom for yuletide, so we're not getting our usual rare new fics at the end of the year :( feel free to send me some prompts if there's any psoh story you'd like to see! ~~please no sofu or taizuu though, i'm begging you~~
> 
> is this a oneshot? is this the beginning of an endless multi-chapter fic i will never end? no one knows, least of all me.

It's a pair of warm blue eyes that greets him, when he opens the door.

D feels his heart fall to his feet, and then recovers it. Places every jagged, cutting piece back on his hand like those of a broken cup, ready for the trash, and pretends it never happened. There's no reason to react like that, after all.

Because the man at the door is not Leon Orcot.

"D," he says, similar, so similar. There's a trace of a familiar jaw in there, of a golden mane cut short, but it's not _him_. D pretends it's relief making him numb. "It's been so long!"

He's swept into a hug. Awkward and strong, warming the parts of his limbs that feel as if they are permanently frozen; he doesn't know how to react to it, so removed that he is from normal human interaction. _Intimate_ human interaction, as familiar and as melancholic as a ghost.

Skies, he's so thrown off by this lookalike he barely even reacts. "Who-"

"It's me, Count!" A wide beam, and at last D is let down from the prolonged embrace: he hadn't even realized his feet hadn't been touching the ground. "Chris!"

"Chris?"

"Ah," the man says, and at last there's a touch of embarrassment. "You're not the Count's father or anything, right? Leon did say you all look the same."

"Leon." What is he, a parrot? D is not used to feeling so tongue-tied, so lost. He blinks slowly, and then blinks again, taking him in. Wide frame, but thin, not bulky. A different ease to his smile. A different shape to his eyes, his nose, his mouth. "You're _Chris?"_

"That's what I said." The grin doesn't lose its strength. "It's been so long, Count! The two of you really should have sent some letters. Or at least called: I didn't know you were so close by."

"Chris," D repeats again, and feeling slams back into him in full strength. He'd rather feel numb for this; he'd rather remain frozen, senseless, unburdened by the knowledge that the child he'd helped raise was now a man. Surely, it couldn't have been that long? Surely, not that many years had passed? He tracks the faint age lines growing on the man's face, and his throat feels dry. "I need to make tea."

"I can help," Chris offers, as sweet as he'd been as a child. "I brought cake, though I don't know your tastes like Leon does."

D turns on his heel. He-- he's being discourteous, _rude_ , to a most beloved guest. But if he doesn't move away then there's no guarantee as to what he might do, or say, or ask, and all of him is screaming _do not mention his name again._

Skies, _Leon_. He'd forbidden the pets from speaking of him. He'd forbidden himself of as much as thinking of the man, certain that with time he'd stop chasing and then finally, finally D would be allowed to forget. And he'd been right about the first part, in the end, no matter how much it still pained him on dreamless nights, when all he could taste was smoke and blood and open night air: with time, Leon Orcot had stopped chasing him.

D had told himself he was glad for it, too.

Brewing the tea is a mechanical task. His hands busy themselves with it, clumsy and absent-minded as they are, and he almost breaks the whole pot in a moment of mindlessness. He's shaking, he realizes. He's shaking and there's no reason for him to do so, because this is not Leon Orcot and nothing has changed at all.

He's composed, by the time he returns with tea. Smile carefully glued to his mouth, hands steady, posture straight. Not a hair out of place. "I did not expect to see you today, Chris." Or ever. "My, how you've grown!"

Chris - a man, not a child, _how long has it been, how long has it been_ \- chuckles, hand rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. D remembers his brother doing that, in nostalgia-stained memories of so long ago. "Yeah," he says. "But to be fair, the last time you saw me I was what, twelve?"

"Eight," D says softly.

"Eight," Chris repeats, looking wondrous. "That's even longer than I thought."

There's a moment of silence. This strange new Chris looks comfortable in his own skin, dressed far more professionally than Leon ever had. He takes the space he's given amongst the pillows on the sofa, instead of spreading out; he places the spoon outside the teacup after stirring in his sugar, instead of leaving it in. D focuses on those details, so that he will not expect him to take out a pack of cigarettes, so that he won't hope for a casual _so this case I was working on_ sort of talk.

"How did you find me?" he says at last, unable to bear the silence. Usually he's the one to work it in his favour, to use it to unsettle his clients into spilling secrets and confessions that will damn or save their lives. Now, he finds that he cannot stand it. Not like this. Not without _knowing._

"Me?" Chris furrows his brow. "It's not too hard, nowadays. The internet has information on everything, if you know where to look."

"I'm aware," D replies, thinking of his now-outdated desktop, whose only functionality is to order truly sinful amounts of candy, and occasionally play a particularly fetching cat video or two. "I hadn't realized-- I wasn't aware someone was still looking for me."

The list of people his father and grandfather have met grows shorter by the year; D himself takes care to not stand out too much, to not interfere on things of a greater order. He learned his lesson all those years ago, still in Los Angeles: he remembers a plane, burning in a phoenix's ashes, and he remembers the day of his father's death and rebirth, and the stricken eyes of the man who had chased him. Father had taken a moment to recognize the man, D remembers: time had left its mark in facial lines and stolen youth.

"I wouldn't _have_ to look for you if you'd just said something," Chris huffs. "But that's just how Leon is: he never remembers to write. Not that it'd have reached me, since I moved over a decade ago. But he's a better detective than that."

D's smile turns stiff, forced. "I fail to see what Mister Detective has to do with this."

"Are you having a fight again?" Chris gives him a disappointed look, as if he'd expected better at this point. As if D hasn't spent years running away from a meeting very much like this, with a very similar-looking man. "Why do you still call him that, anyway? It's not like he's a detective anymore."

"Oh?" His hand is trembling again, faint as it is. D places his cup down before he can do any more damage. "I hadn't heard."

Chris falls silent. Then he, too, places his cup down. "D," he says, all traces of a smile gone. "Where is my brother?"

**Author's Note:**

> title from sheryl crow's _real gone_ 😂 sorry folks, i couldn't resist


End file.
